Kraye vs Irusk - 50pts

Lightning Shroud is back after a very long covid + divorce + moving + changing jobs + new gf + lots more break!

I started playing a bit of Mk3 Brawlmachine, and now Warmachine Mk4, after Guild Ball was unceremoniously killed off by Steamforged.

Cygnar - First Army - Kraye - 50pts

Captain Jeremiah Kraye

* Cyclone

* 2x Defender

Best Boy

2x Trencher Sniper

Trencher Combat Engineers

Rangers

Arcane Forces, Blessing of the Gods, Infiltration, Old Faithful, Power Swell 

I always loved playing Kraye, and in Mk4 he is better than ever! Today I took him into a wall of Man-o-Wars.

Khador - Armored Korps - Irusk - 50pts

Kommandant Irusk

 * Devastator

Man-O-War Kovnik

Battle Mechanics

Man-O-War Bombardiers

Man-O-War Demolitions Korps

Man-O-War Shocktroopers

Inflitration, Old Faithful, Power Swell + ???

Khador wins the roll off and elects to go first. I take the side with the big house in the center, thinking I can use it to use it to outmaneuver the hulking wall of flesh.

Deployment

Khador puts all the boys in the middle. I fan out a little, planning to flank to the left or right depending on what happens.

Deployment. It sure does not look even :D

Round 1

Irusk hands out Iron Flesh to the front line Shocktroopers and runs up the middle.

Kraye plays Arcane Forces and tags the Shocktroppers with Pincushion. He then casts Admonition on himself. Kraye, one Defender, and a Sniper kill one Shocktrooper and deal 7 damage to the next one, but the last Sniper is half an inch too far away to finish it off.

Cygnar, Round 1 complete

Round 2

Battle Mechanics fully repair the hurt Shocktrooper. Melee MOWs run up. Bombardiers shoot my Cyclone and kill the Best Boy, who I should not have left near a jack. Irusk feats, camps 5, and repos into the central trench.

I think a little about whether I can just shoot Irusk to death, but probably not - I need a 13 to land Pincushion, and even then it seems dicey.

So, it's feat and yoyo time. Jacks take turns killing all the Shocktroopers and one Bombardier, then nimbly step away again, mostly out of melee threat ranges. One sniper picks out a Man-O-War that happened to tough. Most of the tough rolls fail, poor Irusk.

Rangers plus one Sniper kill all the battle mechanics. God, they are so maneuverable now. I score the right zone with a Defender. Attrition is looking very good, game should be mine unless I screw up (spoiler alert).

Cygnar, Round 2 complete

Round 3 

Irusk shoots two Rangers and the Kovnik kills the last one. The two remaining Bombardiers charge damage the Defender in the right zone. My sniper in the zone is splatted by the Devastator.

I activate my Jacks and kill off every last Man-O-War grunt except one Demo Korps. Unfortunately I leave the Defender in charge range of Irusk, and the Cyclone in charge range of the Kovnik - which I totally did not have to do. Points are now 2-2.

Not much left - but I had repoed forwards too aggressively...

Round 4

Irusk gives himself Battle Lust, does a hail mary charge, and finishes off the Defender, and then gives gimself Iron Flesh and camps 1. The Kovnik and Devastator destroy my Cyclone. Oh noes! My misplay leaves me down on attrition, I think assassination is the only option.

Irusk charges the Defender

The Man-O-War has only 1 box left and gets sniped, freeing up the last Defender. Engineers fill him up with full focus. Kraye charges Irusk and leaves him on a few boxes, the Defender then smashes Irusk's head in. Victory to the boys in purple!

Death of a Kommandant

Wrap Up

I think I played this OK until the misplacements in Round 3. Clearly I cannot win a straight up fist fight, so hit and run and win attrition while trying to not lose on scenario seemed solid. 

Rangers were better than excepted. Reposition on units is sick, and allows them to Mark Target without immediately losing the whole unit.

Snipers were MVP, killing off so many 1-point MOWs.

The list is really fun to play, and extremely maneuverable. 4 dice drop lowest kills Man-O-Wars, getting Pincushion really helps Kraye into high armor lists.